Food photography

Food photographers work to create and capture these beautiful and enticing images of food for

magazines, cookbooks, restaurant promotional materials, and Web sites. They work with food stylists to make the food look as appetizing and aesthetically beautiful as possible.

Food photography is an artistic technique employed to exaggerate or enhance tothe appearance of food, often for advertising purposes. It is akin to fashion photography in that techniques such as lighting, backgrounds, focus, depth of view, filters are adjusted in ways to glamorize or idealize its often mundane subject. Other tricks of the trade include painting or coloring the photographed objects in order to make them look more appetizing; paintin

uncooked chicken or fowl a deep, glistening brown, for instance, is a standard technique. In popular culture, the exaggerated perfection of the photographs, as well as the mouth-watering images of the food itself, is occasionally referred to as "food porn".

There are three main objectives of food photography: packaging, advertising, and editorial. Different objectives exist for photographing food because the techniques employed must illustrate the food in different ways. For example, when food is photographed in order to be printed on packaging, the image must capture as much detail as possible to ensure food is displayed in a "realistic, favorable way." When food is photographed for advertisements, typically there is a specific idea that the designer wants to convey. The focus is more on selling the food, rather than increasing the "beauty" of the product(s) being photographed. However, when food is photographed for editorials, there is a special emphasis placed on the overall appearance of the food; the "attractiveness" factor takes precedence over the realistic representation of the food itself.

As in any field that requires the use photographic techniques, there are many technical aspects that can be employed to create the desired image, including variations on

the camera angle, the focus, the lighting, the texture and any brand names or images that must comprise the shot. These elements are supplemental to the modification of the food for correct image capture.



For a long time, food photographs tended to be shot and composed in a manner similar to the way people were used to encountering their food: laid out on a table setting and shot from an overhead perspective, i.e., from the point of view of the eater.^[3] Stylists accordingly arranged the food to appear good from above, with the items arranged flat on the plate and clearly separated from each other.

The role of the food stylist is to make the food look attractive in the finished photograph. The time and effort a stylist takes to carefully and artfully arrange the food, is the cause of differences between the way the stylist presents it and the way a home cook or chef may. Visual know-how is also a requirement, as is the knowledge of how to translate the perception of taste, aroma and appeal that one gets from an actual dish, to a two-dimensional photograph.

Food stylists have culinary training; some are professional chefs or have a background in home economics. In addition to knowledge of nutrition and cooking techniques, food stylists must also be resourceful shoppers.As creative professionals they envision the finished photograph and style the food accordingly.

Thanks For Arrive !